Fight or Flight?
by wolfdancer333
Summary: It's 3:46AM in a Tokyo train station on a quiet Thursday. With a ticket in her hand and a broken heart, she has to make a choice: fight or flight? Based on those early Skip Beat Chapters. Minor spoilers for Chapter 1.


Cold, numb fingertips held her freedom printed on a slip of paper, her gaze blank as she stared down at the ticket. It was so early in the morning the stars had disappeared but the sun had yet to rise, a blanket of darkness holding steady over Tokyo's skyline. Nipping at any exposed, bared skin, a frigid wind rustled her unkempt black tresses. The strands of her hair, darker than the veil of night hanging above one of Tokyo's many train stations, billowed out to the side, loosely tied at the nape of her neck. The only thing open were the electronic ticket booths, normal pedestrians and station employees having been relieved of their shifts.

To the right was Tokyo's empty streets, silent and forlorn, lacking the gentle rumble of tires and chatter of it's many residents. It was times like these, in the quiet of night, she was reminded of her home-town and it's simplistic nature. Where Tokyo was bustling with activity, socially crowded, her home-town lacked the tall, glass skyscrapers and the honking, anxious vehicles always trying to get to one place or another. Back home, it was much more peaceful – only active during the tourist season and even then, not the first choice for many in destinations – without the gruelling dredge of the city.

She remembered thick, dense forests, warm and brightly dappled sunlight falling to a coarse, unpaved path. There was the dignified, royal air of a city born and bred with lineage and history that didn't need Tokyo's lights to shine.

She remembered tilting her head back and seeing millions of sparkling stars, trying to count them all and make child-like, naive wishes.

That was her home, the place she had been born, and the kanji printed on the ticket – Kyoto, it read – stared back at her as if urging her to follow it's call to come home. And she had never wanted to run back to that place in all her short life. She was born in Kyoto with the rumored and famous pure, snow-white complexion and long dark hair that all women in her home-town carried. It was a distinctive trait to Kyoto but she carried another, more striking feature not inherent to Kyoto's culture: bright, luminescent golden orbs shadowed by thick rows of dark lashes.

Slender and small, she was petite in stature and size but a dignified maturity seemed to radiate from her form. Her spine – despite having been sitting for so long on the metal bench that her butt was numb, tingles racing down her legs – was straight, pulled upwards as if on a mannequin string. Rounded shoulders dipped back and downward, her abdomen just as unison as her spine. Knees touching, her legs bent straight where her worn tennis shoes sat together, flat on the concrete of the train station.

A small square hat sat on her straggly black locks, the lip pulled over her forehead where loose strands of her hair fell in a shroud across her downcast gaze. She hadn't had time – or the inclination – to change so she had remained in her last job's uniform. The orange and white ensemble glowed under the bright lights. Underneath the orange skirt, she wore a faded pair of scratchy, dark blue jeans she had had for forever and lovingly stitched to keep them wearable. After all, it wasn't like she had the money to afford to buy herself new things.

It wasn't like she had spent precious years of her teenage life working two – sometimes three! – jobs and it wasn't like she had rented one of the most upscale, uptight, expensive apartments in one of Tokyo's most expensive high-rises.

It wasn't like she had worked her fingers, her body, to the bone for_ herself_ – this boring slip of a girl who couldn't even afford the lovely make-up she had always dreamed of.

None of it had been for herself, it had all been for –

_"__Shouuuuu-chaaaaaaan!3"_

Immediately, a cloud of dark, ominous shadows rear up from her tense body, ripping the shining memory to tiny shreds. Her own voice still haunts her and the odd, fanged grudges that emerge from the plume of darkness curl protectively around her, whispering in her ear. So overcome by her own hatred – with _herself_ – she can't see when the grudges seal up a beautiful chest, wrapping it in chains and locking them all with devilish giggles. Drowning in their poison but unable to fight against it, she cannot hear the sobbing of an angel locked in the chest, in the dark and all alone wondering if she would ever see the light of day again.

She was all that remained. When the rest of her siblings, her family, had erupted into purple-black flames, their bodies burned to bluish-black husks inscribed and fuelled by a vengeful grudge, she had not succumbed. Fighting with all her tiny might, she had survived only to have her feathery white wings torn apart by their vicious claws and tossed at the bottom of the cold, dark chest. Sealed inside, the last little angel buried her head in her small hands and cried, the last hope of a poisoned heart.

Oblivious to her heart's inner dilemma, her cold fingers dig into the paper of the ticket as she almost crushes it in her hatred.

She had run away from the only home she had ever known, quit school and begun working at a vulnerable age, denying herself, for _him_. Everything had always, only, ever been for him. When a heart is broken, one should just be able to pick up the pieces but if those pieces were empty to begin with, what was left? All her life it had been about her prince – No, no! He was _not_ her Prince, he was not a prince at all, as a matter of fact!

Deep within the Tokyo station, the lights flickered in reaction to the flux of demonic rage that erupted from the girl sitting on the metal bench.

None of her fairytales had prepared her for this.

Shotaro.

Just his name, said only in her mind, caused the swirling grudges – that looked suspiciously like their master – to hiss, their dark eyes narrowed and fangs bared.

All of this was his fault!

If he had never asked her to come with him, if she had never fallen in love with a selfish, egotistical idiot, if she had….!

Her grip crushing the ticket loosened until the crinkled and rumpled paper was lying lax between her fingers.

If only she had….What? Stayed in Kyoto? With Shotaro's parents, running the Fuwa Ryokan and training to be the Head Mistress, surrounded by thorny memories? How could she call Kyoto home when all she remembered was Shotaro?

Who….Who, exactly, is Mogami, Kyoko?

Tears gloss over her golden orbs and she clenches her jaw, fighting them off furiously. No! She can't cry! Not now, not here! There isn't anything left for her to do but run home with her tail between her legs, and it's just not _fair_! She was nothing but an empty shell, held together only by her foolish love. When that frayed string snapped, she broke and, staring down at the ticket in her cold, numb fingers, realized there was nothing that was Mogami, Kyoko. She was made up of all the things everyone else had wanted her to be, raised her to be, told her to be and now, sitting in a breezy Tokyo train station, she had _nothing_.

She was nothing but a broken, stupid girl.

The grudge demons quiet their raucous banter, halt their flying through the frigid, empty station and settle, with less force than they emerged, back into the depths of her being. They hide in the darkness of her heart, unaware of the small angel huddled in the chest, it's existence forgotten as it takes a deep breath and holds on. It has to survive, it has to live, because one day, it knows! It knows it will be free to fly again! If it can survive until the box is opened, then there is hope. And it will because Kyoko's heart cannot bear it's loss.

She clamps her golden orbs closed, eyebrows furrowing deep grooves in her pale skin and her lips twisted in a painful frown. Warm pressure builds, stinging her tightly closed eyes and she shakes her head, fighting the tears and fending off the pain. Giving in now would mean defeat and she….She cannot lose. She cannot lose to him! But….

What could she hope to possibly do? How could she seek her vengeance on the bastard who had used her, broken her, when he was at the top of a golden tower?

To rip him off his throne, she would have to reach his level, she would have to –

With a gasp, she flings herself backward, eyes wide. Deep within, her grudges all, simultaneously, snap their heads towards her and buried in the darkness of her closed heart, an angel smiles gently. Exhausted, it's eyelids flutter before they slide closed. Sinking to the cold, hard floor, it rests and waits for the day it will fly again.

That was it….That was her answer!

Shotaro had said it himself: if she wanted to beat him, she would just have to join show business and bring him down herself!

Wide eyes brightening, Kyoko grinned, her confidence fuelled more by vengeance than inner strength but it was enough. And then her eyes catch sight of the crumpled ticket still in her loose fingers. She traces the words and pauses, hanging on uncertainly with both hands to a part of herself. There is the unclear, uncertainty of the future in Tokyo, of staying and fighting, or fleeing back to Kyoto, to her home, and living a life she was born and raised for. Gold orbs glance down the tracks to her left, seeing the path home, and then to the right, seeing the deserted streets of Tokyo spread out before her.

Hesitation spreads, slowing the rush of her blood and she softly bites her lip.

Fight or flight?

The answer, when it comes, is gentle, like the fluttering of a fairy's wings. Just as the Sun rises above Tokyo, in an empty train station lies a very crumpled ticket on a metal bench.

A long time ago, stones had been laid down in a small grove where the Sun sparkled in clear blue waters, where a Fairy Prince and a crying Princess laid the stage for a journey that would transcend Fate itself.

The fight had only just begun.


End file.
